


through the shadow (through the dawn)

by almosthello, happinesssdeceit (crescenttwins)



Category: Tales of Zestiria
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Angst, Blood, Blood and Injury, Character Death, Dark Fairy Tale Elements, Death, Gore, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, Organs, Zine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-15
Updated: 2019-02-15
Packaged: 2019-10-22 13:05:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17663195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/almosthello/pseuds/almosthello, https://archiveofourown.org/users/crescenttwins/pseuds/happinesssdeceit
Summary: “A feather and a song,” Sorey says, his words unmuffled by the black scarf that wound around his head and face, cloth that fell into shadows and smoke, “in exchange for more time.”In which Mikleo trades his feathers out of love, and Sorey learns more than he ever wanted to about mortal selfishness. An alternate take onThe Nightingale, our contribution for Chocomint Project's Fairy Tale Compilation in 2018!





	through the shadow (through the dawn)

**Author's Note:**

> [Chocomint Project](https://twitter.com/chocomint_srmk) released a Fairy Tale Compilation in mid-2018, and this was our collaboration piece for it! Thank you for giving our take on _The Nightingale_ a chance, and we hope you enjoy the ride!! <3 <3
> 
>  **Extended Warnings:** Blood, character death, gore (organ/injury), disease/decay, brief description of torture

****“A feather and a song,” Sorey says, his words unmuffled by the black scarf that wound around his head and face, cloth that fell into shadows and smoke, “in exchange for more time.”

“A feather and a song,” Mikleo agrees, watching him with red-rimmed eyes and a wavering smile from his perch above a dying king’s bed, “as promised.” He hums, tones drifting into splashes of color, bright birdsong that fills the empty space in Sorey’s chest. The gossamer strands of beloved memories that Mikleo weaves into the ballad are sweet, like strands of spun sugar melting on Sorey’s tongue.

Sorey tucks his cloak of shade and smoke around him. A wisp of shadow curls from his scythe, twists through the air and wraps around a single feather of Mikleo’s bright turquoise plumage. He tugs his scythe back, and as the shadow unravels it takes the color with it. The songbird’s voice does not falter, and finally the feather shimmers black, stark against the bright color of Mikleo’s wings.

A blemish to join many others. Black feathers are scattered throughout Mikleo’s plumage, markers of deals made and things sacrificed.

Mortality is a strange thing, Sorey thinks as Mikleo weaves stories of warmth and family around him, because mortals are so willing to discard the future for the now, not realizing what distant abyss lies beyond their fingertips. His fingers curl around his scythe’s shaft, and he stares down at the human king that Mikleo so desperately wants to keep alive.

It only takes a moment to reap a soul; Sorey’s scythe is an extension of him, is an extension of Death, and it could never be stopped by mortal means. To take a mortal soul is to cut out their heart: their ambitions and and pride and dreams, their anxieties and their regrets and every piece of what makes them human.

Sorey is a master at reaping human souls, has done so in the past-future-present and all the space and time that lies perpendicular to it. He has collected hearts, has pulled apart their seams and from them built vessels for the souls to pass to the afterlife in, vessels strong enough that they won’t fall victim to the ghouls that linger around the dead.

Sorey is a monster that humans fear and curse, is the monster that meets humans at the end of every journey and in every battlefield and tragedy. He is a curse upon their enemies, a cry when justice fails, a nightmare come to life.

The song comes to an end, and the sound of unraveling chains makes Sorey open his eyes, disperse some of the shadows that he had gathered around himself in his thoughts.

“My song was potent enough to make Death rest?” Mikleo teases, and return to his perch. The chain attached to the cuff of his ankle is silver and sparkling and makes something in Sorey’s mouth taste bitter.

“Is it too soon to ask for another,” Sorey blurts, and he nearly bites his tongue when he snaps his teeth shut.

The songbird smiles at him, glances down to the slowly stirring king. “A song for the waking,” Mikleo offers.

Sorey settles into the corner of room, wraps darkness around him as Mikleo croons to the king. He says nothing when the king awakens, reaches into the cage. Says nothing when the mortal’s fingers caress the top of Mikleo’s head, when the bird leans into the touch, cooing.

Says nothing as he sinks into the shadows of space and time, into the dreadful, peaceful silence, where the only sound is his echoing memory of Mikleo’s voice.

* * *

The color captures Sorey first: turquoise blooming out of a field of green, so bright that he squints at first. Flowers, small bursts of petals, transient and sweet smelling. Sorey draws his scarf closer around his head, to keep that tantalizing sweetness from clouding his thoughts. These blooms have a different kind of sweetness than Mikleo’s birdsong-- it’s a sweetness that is heady and strong, that makes you dizzy upon tasting it.

He wonders if he could pull them from the ground, weave them into the shadows of his cloak to surprise Mikleo when they next meet-- mortals like matching things, Sorey knows. They buy matching clothes and matching rings and pretend to have matching souls. Perhaps it would make Mikleo smile at him, before he sings.

Humming, Sorey considers the old man amongst the soil he has worked his entire life, dirt beneath his nails and tucked into the creases in his hands. Careful not to tread on any of the flowers, he makes his way towards the still toiling man. He watches the man pat the last of the seeds into the wet earth.

 _Leaving things unfinished_ , Mikleo had told him once, as he watched his no-longer-dying king breathe once more, _leads to needless regret_.

But mortals are never _finished_ , will always have regrets: enough that they could fill a heart, could fill a room, could fill a kingdom. It’s an echo chamber, regret. One human regrets he ever said something; another regrets that he said nothing; and on and on. Regrets are cantankerous things, things that swallow up time and peace more effectively than Death ever could.

Better to take the regrets you had, then spend time wishing up new ones altogether.

The old man turns, tilts the brim of his sunhat up. His eyes catch on Sorey’s figure, and he says, “It’s already time, then?”

Death is visible to only three kinds of mortals: children, animals, and the dying. But the man is smiling at him, is not one that will run and shout and be torn apart. His soul is half-disconnected already, and Sorey pulls his scythe from the shadows of the garden, feels it solidify between his hands. “That’s right,” he says, smiling.

He raises the scythe, cuts down a smooth and painless arc to cut out the man’s heart. Carefully plucks of the strings of its matter until it reforms into an appropriate vessel, until there are no holes for ghouls to whisper into. Every heart is different: some are scarred by heartbreak, by disease. Other hearts are pitted, chunks of muscle given away to those loved dearly. The most beloved of people are those with patchwork hearts; they always make the strongest vessels.

The man’s soul drifts nearby, dazed as his memories twist around him, emotions flitting over his face like dappled shadows. This part takes time, longer for humans who feel strongly and who have lived long.

Sorey waits, cradling the vessel.

The sun has come close to the horizon by the time the old man blinks, eyes clearing the film of his memories. He watches Sorey carefully as he wipes away his tears with wrinkled thumbs, and then says, “You’re younger than I would have thought.”

“Our time does not flow the same way,“ Sorey responds. “And I am older than I look.”

“Ah, well,” the old man says, looking startled at sound. He takes an uncertain pause, and Sorey lets him, watches the wind curl the bright turquoise petals instead.  “You know, I’ve lived a long and happy life. But these past few years it’s been all the little things that bothered me so-- my hips, my back, my head, my _son-in law_ \-- ah, but it was a good life.” He kneels, patting the ground carefully. “These flowers brought much peace to me, when I was hurting. Perhaps I should thank you for taking me when I am here.”

He doesn’t look at his body, crumpled amongst the flowers. The mortal souls never look at their bodies.

“You decided to come here all on your own,” Sorey says, meeting the man’s eyes for the first time, “and so here is where you’ll go.”

The old man’s soul freezes for a moment, so suddenly that Sorey flicks his shadows out to cut away any nibbling ghouls.

“I apologize,” the man whispers, voice thick, “you just reminded me very much of the late princess.” He coughs, clearing his throat. “It’s your eyes, perhaps, or just an old man’s memory playing tricks.”

“I haven’t reaped her yet,” Sorey offers, when the man goes silent. Past and present and future are tangled strings, strings that Sorey dances along; a death long mourned for this soul is still living in the strings Sorey is knotted in. “But I’ll take it as a compliment that you would compare me to her.” But the soul is drifting now, quiet and unresponsive.

Sorey raises the vessel, and draws the soul into it. He tucks the old man’s soul carefully away, stitches the it shut with his shadows and slides it into the space between Here and There. It was a good heart, one full of laughter and strength: it will carry the old man to the other side safely.

He lets his scythe dissipate into the shadows, kneels amongst the blooms the old man had treasured for a lifetime. The bright turquoise of the flowers reminds him of his songbird’s feathers, bright even with red-gold light of a setting sun. They brought the old man peace when he was trapped in a failing body, Sorey thinks.

Sorey thinks of a small bird with a decaying body, caged next to a rich king’s bed. He thinks of a song, of happiness and of memories shared, a song growing weaker every time Mikleo fulfills a deal. A song and a feather, Sorey thinks. A thousand songs, a thousand feathers until the songbird’s turquoise plumage goes midnight black and his little heart stops.

A death march for a king who knows _nothing_.

Maybe flowers will bring Mikleo peace for a moment, for a breath, for long enough for Sorey to see him smile--

A flower crumbles beneath Sorey’s touch, bright blue-green color shuddering away into ash.

* * *

Pestilence is a familiar presence in the castle, stalking the halls with a confident gait. More often than not, Sorey sees echoes of her presence in the sickly pallor that overcomes mortals so quickly.

It is rare for them to meet: that a mortal earns her ire, that she lingers long enough to meet Sorey’s eyes over a self-destructing body. He sees her now, lingering over the guard that is stationed at Mikleo’s door. The man is coughing, wet sounds that make him crumple to the ground.

“Death,” Pestilence greets him with a nod. Her red hair is bright against the beaked mask that she wears, her eyes sharp through the eye slits.

“Pestilence,” Sorey returns, and feels his scythe curl into his hands from the shadows.

“Yeah, yeah.” She says, “Formalities out of the way and all that.” She drags her dagger through the man’s body effortlessly, wreaking havoc on the organs that the blade phases through. “I met _your mortal_ , Sorey-- he’s terribly small, isn’t he?”

The shadows around Sorey go sharp, edges stiff enough that he would skewer anything that approached. “He’s pretty though, isn’t he?” He says, careful to keep his voice light-hearted. Pestilence is dangerous in her interest: she has existed for much longer than he has, navigates the timelines at her whim.

“Relax, I didn’t touch him.” Pestilence cackles. “And I _knew_ you thought he was pretty.” She sheathes her dagger at her waist, taps the pommel lightheartedly.

Sorey’s fingers loosen around his scythe. “Isn’t his soul such a lovely color,” he says. “I’d never seen such a color before, outside of stones and flowers.” He hums, soft, “And his song is very sweet, I didn’t know I liked birdsong before-- did you know?”

Pestilence is quiet, considering him carefully through her mask. “You _like_ the mortal, hm?” She teases.

Sorey pauses. “I _might_ ,” he says, tangling his fingers in his cloak of shadows.

She makes a disbelieving sound.

“I’m not _attached_ ,” Sorey says, petulant. “He’s just interesting.”

“Suuure,” Pestilence says, laughter in her tone. “You’ll have no trouble _at all_ reaping that bird’s soul when he’s done trading his life away for that ruler.”

“I _won’t_ ,” Sorey agrees firmly.

“Sorey,” she says, “you’ll have to let go of him when his feathers have all been corrupted.” She shrugs, “It’s not Death’s role to handle the afterlife.”

“I _know that_ ,” he responds.

“Then you should consider spending more time with him,” she says, but her eyes are unfocused, “because you don’t have forever. Mortals are delicate that way.” Her gaze sharpens. “There isn’t anything you’ll regret, when he’s gone?”

A long silence, broken only by the sobs of the guard on the floor between them.

“I’m not foolish enough to touch him,” Sorey says, finally.

“Yeah, yeah,” Pestilence says, and then finally steps away from the suffering guard. “You should take care of this one.” She pulls the hood of her cloak back up, a sterile white that drapes neatly to the floor. “He’s been suffering enough, don’t you think?”

Sorey opens his mouth to retort, but she’s gone-- slipped between the threads of reality and into another time entirely.

* * *

Sorey cuts open the woman's chest, reaches in and jerks back quickly, curling his hand around his scythe. Her sobbing soul is curled above her body, tethered still, and Sorey stares because there is--

Emptiness.

In the place where the human heart usually lies, a patchwork organ twisted and mended by the collisions with other mortals, there is emptiness. Sorey crouches beside the body, tugs once more at the place he expects to see a heart: perhaps it is shrunken, or hidden behind sharp bone. People who are hurt sometimes place their hearts in strange places.

The chest cavity is empty: Sorey taps aside bone and skin, aside muscle and soul, and there is nothing.

There's a feeling beginning to shudder up his back, an uneasiness that makes the shadows around him curl and flare.

"Hey," he says, kneeling by the still sobbing soul.

The woman's soul is draped in red, the color of passion and of anger and of love. Red souls usually have hearts that are bigger than anyone else's; pieces swapped and taken, heart swelling for having loved and been loved.

The woman turns to him, tears smeared across her face and hands. She looks at him for a moment, eyes traveling across the shadows and then fixating on his scythe. "I've died, then," she says, so happily that it makes something inside Sorey twist.

"Your heart," Sorey says, "where is it?"

The woman's face trembles, as though she could fall apart, and she says, "My--" and cuts herself off, coughing.

"Where is your heart?" Sorey repeats.

"That cursed thing," the woman spits, and then laughs wetly, "do I really need it? It has not brought me happiness."

Sorey stays silent for a moment, pushes his shadows out further into the room to dissuade any curious ghouls who are lingering around this vulnerable soul.  "You need a heart," he answers, "or you can not be said to have lived."

The woman is silent, stares at her collapsed body. "It is painful, to live." She says, "I wonder if you know that? How could you, as Death?" She looks into the distance. "Sometimes it is better to kill your heart than to let yourself continue falling and hurting yourself. You don’t just collect happinesses-- you collect sadness as well, and your body gives up, after a while. And people, too, give up on you."

Sorey watches the woman, examines the strange cavity in her chest a little more closely. "It does not look as though you have killed your own heart," he says. The borders of her chest are orderly, clean and waiting for a heart to be placed inside and treasured.

"You are correct," she says. "I gave it away instead."

Mortals are such strange creatures, Sorey has always thought. They always do things that baffle him. "Why would you give your heart away?"

The woman laughs, and it is a wretched sound. "I fell in _love_ , Death. Like all the foolish women alive, I fell in love and I gave every part of me to her." She curls her hands into her hair. "Who am I, speaking of _love_ to Death?"

"I thought," Sorey murmurs, "that people in love exchanged their hearts. So that they would both have a vessel with which to contain--"

"Their love?" The woman laughs.

 _Their souls_ , Sorey thinks, but does not voice it.

"Love can be such a mistake," she says. "Love is you binding yourself, making yourself vulnerable to someone who you can not ever truly know, trusting that the parts that lie hidden are parts that will not harm you. And I was blind, Death. I was blind and now I am empty."

The phrasing startles Sorey, who has never thought of how mortals experience the loss of their heart; who has never considered how they handle the vacant space, which echoes and echoes and never has anyone to listen or to call back. Do they experience it the same way Sorey does, he wonders. Do they experience this quiet longing, this pull to be close to soft and beautiful things, things that curl inside them for brief moments before disappearing like smoke.

Sorey can not grow a heart, he has learned. No matter how many beautiful things, how many terrifyingly fragile and wonderful things he lingers near, his chest stays resolutely empty.

But mortals are different-- mortals patch themselves hearts from the things they love, once they are strong enough to look forward. Once they are _inspired_.

Sorey reaches down, curls a hand around the soul's arm to tug her up. "Come with me," he orders without thinking, eyes already in the direction of the palace, of _Mikleo_. Mikleo, who makes the disturbing quiet in Sorey's chest echo with sound; Mikleo, whose song is a quiet comfort even in the distance. Surely Mikleo will be able to inspire this soul to grow a heart, to patch together the things that made her a _red_ soul in the first place.

"I can't," the woman says. She's watching her body, and she's twisted up in it, imagining herself to be trapped by flesh that has already forsaken her.

"You can," Sorey says, and tugs her again. "Come."

"I can't," she repeats.

Sorey tries once more, and this time she pulls her arm away. Her gaze is still fixated on her corpse, and she does not realize that she has left a scrap of her essence lingering still in Sorey's hand.

"Even if I was blind," she says, kneeling to touch her own face, "this was the body that made her love me, once upon a time. I could not forsake it."

 _It is flesh_ , Sorey wants to argue, _it is flesh and your soul is disintegrating, becoming lost to the air._ There's a thrumming in the air, the hum of ghouls and all the creatures that swallow down lost souls starting to circle.

"Does she feel so strongly that she would abandon you," Sorey says, "that she would want you to lose yourself for the sake of a lost love?" She is trapping herself, chaining herself down amongst hungry predators. "Does she wish for you to live such a tragedy?"

"Didn't you know," the woman says, her voice like smoke, "love always ends in tragedy. That's why we cling to it while we're alive." Her form is slipping, patches of her soul growing indistinct.

"I don't understand," Sorey says, watches part of her be swallowed away by unseen devourers.

"I suspected you wouldn't," the woman says, eyes still fixed on her own body. She doesn't appear to notice that pieces of her soul are disappearing at all. "But wherever you were going to take me," she murmurs, voice growing faint, "I wonder if it isn't-- maybe you'll understand, one day."

"I won't," Sorey asserts, but it's clear that she can't hear him anymore. Still, he watches until she disappears entirely, until the humming in the air stops. Then he watches more, until the animals and the monsters of the night come to claim the flesh that she was so attached to, until she becomes nothing but the sustenance of others.

When Sorey finally moves, his face feels twisted and strange. He slides into the space where emptiness and timelessness reside, curls his fingers around the last piece of the woman's soul, still hiding between his fingers. In the shadows, the piece of soul is swallowed up quickly, dispersing, and it is almost like he devoured her himself.

He lingers in those shadows, lets them settle over his skin while he thinks.

That mortals give away their hearts without asking for one in return, that they trust so blindly that their love will be enough to carry them. Mortals only _need_ one heart, but they only _start_ with one. Souls are valuable; hearts are protection and memories and all the things that a soul needs to remember why they shouldn't linger in the dark.

Mortals need hearts.

Hearts are things that remind mortals of the things that make them happy.

Sorey's eyes slide open, and he exhales, reaches out of the shadows and into the room that Mikleo shares with his king. Sunlight is filtering through the large windows, and the way the light twists in the room makes the song bird's turquoise feathers sparkle.

"--Death?" Mikleo chirps in alarm, and a flurry of flaps as he twists to look at the room's exit. "Is the king--"

"Sorey," Sorey murmurs through his mask. There's something terrible building up in his breath, and he can feel it lingering on his skin, like a layer of the woman's lost soul.

"Sor-- what?"

"Sorey, please." He says again, but his voice sounds strange.

"I-- I don't understand, Death," the songbird says, and Sorey nearly whines, he just wants to hear--

"Please, songbird. Call me Sorey." He grits his teeth.

Silence rings in the room, and Sorey swallows-- this was a _mistake_. He and mortals are at odds, have been separated for an eternity because that is the natural order; what he is doing now makes no sense, he tells himself desperately, tells the tiny part of him that is screaming to hear Mikleo's voice.

"Never mind," rushes out of his mouth, and he presses back against the shadows. If he leaves here, then maybe Mikleo will forget, will-- or maybe he can pay a visit to Memory; it wouldn't be _ideal_ to owe a favor to Memory but she's fond of him and she wouldn't ask the price that Time would. He nods to himself, feels his foot sink into the shadows.

"Sorey," Mikleo says, and Sorey nearly falls over as he tugs himself out of the shadows.

"Again," he asks, "please?"

"Sorey," Mikleo repeats, and then again. He murmurs it softly, voice lovely and warm. "Come here, please."

Sorey approaches the bird cage carefully, tucks his shadows in close to his skin so none of them can slither over Mikleo. He approaches nearly until his breath touches the bars, and then watches the songbird hop closer to him.

"Why are you here, if not for the king's life?" Mikleo asks, eyes searching what he can see of Sorey's face.

"I'm--" Sorey tries, but the words are heavy and slow in his mouth. "A so--"

"Take your time," he responds, and hums softly as he waits.

The sounds are gentle things, thin and curling and Sorey inhales them anxiously, lets the warmth of Mikleo's concern settle his belly.

"Love," Sorey says, finally, and then, "I don't understand it."

Mikleo tilts his head, peers at Sorey through the bars with a smile. "I don't think anyone truly understands love," Mikleo says, "least of all the people who claim to be in love."

"You love the king," Sorey accuses brittlely.

"I do," Mikleo murmurs, "but there are many kinds of love."

"Is any kind of love enough," Sorey asks, because he's seeing Mikleo, now, hovering over the king and waiting to be devoured, a last act of devotion-- "to give up on yourself?"

Mikleo makes a sad sound, leans in more closely to him, and Sorey backs away, thinks of the way the woman's soul still feels, churning in his shadows; thinks of a flower shuddering to ash under his fingertips. "No," Mikleo says, "not any kind of love. But most loves require you to give something up."

"I don't understand," Sorey says, again and again and again, he keeps repeating it because he doesn't _understand_ , doesn't understand mortals and the way they trade themselves so easily, doesn't understand the way they never realize how much of themselves they're leaving behind. He chants the words because nothing else comes to his lips, because his eyes are shut tightly and his face feels strange and wet.

Then, abruptly, he is silenced by a soft pressure on his forehead.

Sorey opens his eyes, transfixed by Mikleo's closeness, and the bird coos gently at him until he settles, staring.

"Does Death breathe," Mikleo wonders after they have been quiet for a long while, when Sorey's skin feel less stretched across his face.

"I _can_ ," Sorey says, a moment too slow.

"Ah, but does that mean you have to?" Mikleo says, "Or that you are _choosing_ to?"

"Breathing is _interesting_ ," Sorey argues, and the feeling of twisting in his skin is replaced by a rush of heat up his face. "I'm allowed to try it if I'm interested."

"You're quite strange, Death." Mikleo says, and Sorey stares at the gentle curve of his lips. When he leans forward, Sorey keeps absolutely still, until Mikleo places a second kiss on his forehead. "Sorey."

Sorey swallows, steps back. "Thank you," he says, because no other words will come to his lips. There’s a new dark feather of the shoulder of Mikleo’s left wing: Sorey doesn’t know if it’s selfish of him not to mention it (if it’s selfish to be glad that it is a feather alone and not Mikleo’s entire being, shuddering into nothingness as a result of this whim)-- because they had exchanged no deal.

But Mikleo smiles at him, and--

Sorey keeps his eyes fixed on the songbird as he lets the shadows drag him back to where he belongs.

* * *

The next time Sorey visits the palace, he brings with him a branch from a mountaintop, still wet with rain. It is strong smelling, sweet and fresh, and there are mortals that will hang the leaves to keep illness away. The wrap around the branch is sturdy in his hands: a favor to Birth that he'll need to repay.

The dark feather that Mikleo traded for two kisses upon Sorey's skin curls into a patch of shining ink on his shoulder, and the sight of it makes something in Sorey twist. Still, this is a Mikleo who has made that choice, and so he ducks forward, pushes the branch through the bars of the songbird's cage carefully. When he pulls his hands back, he curls them into Birth's shawl, so that none of his essence spoils the branch.

Light lavender eyes meet his when he looks up, and when he startles back, Mikleo smiles at him.

"A gift," Sorey blurts, before Mikleo can say anything. "In thanks."

"In thanks," Mikleo repeats, the look on his face soft. "For what, Sorey?'

Sorey's breath does something strange, makes him make a wheezing sound when he speaks. "For the-- for using my name," he finishes dumbly.

There's mirth in Mikleo's voice. " _Oh_ , you're younger than the you I saw last."

Sorey can't help the frown that makes its way onto his lips. "It's not--"

"You're sweet," Mikleo says, "and using your name is no great task, Sorey. I'm happy to use it." The songbird hops down from his perch, the golden chains around his ankle jangling with the motion. "So what have you brought me, then?"

"It's a branch from the top of the Rayfalke Spiritcrest," Sorey says. "The smell-- they use it to clear the air after a long illness. The king is always sick, so the mountain can spare you one branch." He moves to rub the back of his head, forgets his arms are still swathed in cloth.

Mikleo coos at him in amusement when he splutters at the faceful of cloth. "I am glad the mountain is still thriving. It is difficult to tell how things change, outside of this cage."

"The birds of the wild," Sorey says, too curious to be cautious, "seem to travel far and free. They see the kingdoms that men has risen and struck down; the great forests that have been eaten by fire and born anew. Do you not wish to do the same?"

Mikleo watches him, hums. "I wonder how many times we will have this conversation, before you are satisfied."

" _I_ haven't had this conversation before," Sorey protests.

Mikleo teases, “Then perhaps this time I’ll convince you, and save myself countless arguments with your future self.”

“Then,” Sorey says, stubborn, “tell me. Why do you allow yourself to be chained and caged, when you could be exploring the land beyond this room?”

“Because of kindness, perhaps?” Mikleo says, the corner of his lip lifting.

Sorey settles onto his heels, making an unhappy sound. “You won’t regret spending your time here?”

Mikleo warbles, a soft triplet of notes. “If we regret about how we’ve chosen to spend time, we’ll end up spending it twice.” He hops, shaking the chain around his leg as he hums. “Besides, I can’t leave anymore.”

“The king is imprisoning you,” Sorey asserts, eyes flitting from the cage to the delicate cuff around Mikleo’s ankle. There’s something rippling over the bones of Sorey’s spine, something pulling his bones tightly together. “Humans _always_ make a mess of things, and their rulers are the worst of all. Selfish--”

“Wrong,” Mikleo reprimands, “I can’t leave because _you_ will come for him if I leave.”

Sorey snaps his mouth shut, breaks their eye contact and finds himself wincing at the spread of black feathers across Mikleo’s fine plumage.

The silence is acidic, enough that Sorey inhales and feels his chest burning. He can’t bring himself to sink into the shadows; if he leaves now, he’s not sure how much time will pass before Mikleo sees a version of _him_ again.

“Songbirds only live twenty years,” Mikleo offers, after a long quiet. “I was fortunate to be able to use my time this way.”

“Is the king worth so much,” Sorey asks, words heavy in his mouth.

Mikleo reaches through the bars, curls his fingers around Sorey’s cheek. A gentle tug to his ear lobe and Sorey is stepping forward. His eyes are fixed on the mass of black feathers, at the sparsity of turquoise feathers among them: The bird is falling closer and closer to the end of his life, cavalier in his treatment of his own lifespan.

“You’re dying,” Sorey says, and feels foolish. All mortals are dying, they always are inching closer and closer to their end. But this is-- this is _different_ ; this is Mikleo trading away days _months_ years like tokens for king’s life; this is Mikleo wasting away so very slowly.

Mikleo smiles at him, and Sorey bites his lip, hard enough that he would draw blood. He wishes the king were here, that he could tear open the mortal’s chest and be done with this, could send him away and set Mikleo free. The feeling is heavy, like a curse under his tongue, and he wonders-- Sorey wonders if this could be the cause of it. If the king oscillates towards death so frequently because of _Sorey’s_ feelings towards the man: a resentful gratitude for the opportunity to see Mikleo.

Gentle fingers tap Sorey’s cheek, tug down his scarf so carefully that Sorey struggles to stay still. He keeps his eyes on Mikleo’s as the songbird unveils his face.

Mikleo leans forward, through the bars of the cage, and presses a kiss to Sorey’s bare cheek.

Sorey jerks backwards, one hand covering his cheek while the other scrambles to tug up his scarf. A-- a _kiss_ , and Mikleo has so few feathers left, and Sorey pulls his shadows around him messily, feels his foot slip while he rushes away.

“I’m fortunate that it will be you who takes me away, in the end.” Mikleo says, and Sorey’s eyes wrench upwards just in time to see his smile as time curls around him.

* * *

“Hey, Mikleo,” Sorey hums one day, shadows curling around him while the king coughs up blood. “How did we meet?” Every Mikleo that Sorey meets already knows him-- smiles at him wetly from above the dying king’s form and offers his flesh and song for a little more time. Sings sweetly for him.

Sorey has not met Mikleo for the _first_ time yet, not truly.

Not the Mikleo who didn’t know him as the taker of life; not the Mikleo who was so desperate to make a deal with Death.

Sorey wonders, sometimes, if he would understand Mikleo better if he knew what Mikleo was like _before._ When all of his feathers were vibrant turquoise, instead of a countdown to the end of his life.

“Hey, Mikleo,” Sorey asks, poking his fingers through the bars of the birdcage to stroke the back of a sleeping Mikleo’s head. The feathers there have turned black, the result of an exchange that Sorey has not yet made, and they shine like oil slick in the candlelight. “Why did you make a deal with me?”

Mikleo trills softly in his sleep, leaning into the gentle touch. A devoted sentinel, Sorey muses, but there are limits to mortality. He turns his eyes upon the king’s hunched form, blood dripping between the fingers of his hand. There are limits to mortality; there are consequences to pushing a body beyond its time.

It would be so very easy to reap the king, Sorey thinks, but does not summon his scythe.

Instead he pets Mikleo gently for a moment more, and then slips away as the sun rises.

* * *

“Mortals are so selfish.” Sorey complains to the sunlit room.

“The most selfish,” Mikleo agrees, curled up on his perch. He moves less, these days, skin drawn tighter over his hollow bones. His head tilts. “Is this surprising to you?”

Settling on the window’s edge, Sorey stares at the songbird. “ _You’re_ surprising to me,” he murmurs, “and at the same time, so very ordinary.” The lie tastes like ash in his mouth.

“There is nothing wrong with ordinary,” comes the response.

The laugh that bubbles out of his throat surprises Sorey. “Of course you would think so.” He stretches, pulls one leg up onto the ledge. “Selfishness is ordinary-- selfishness for one’s own sake, selfishness for one’s family, selfishness for one’s people.” He meets Mikleo’s eyes. “It’s what makes mortals so very predictable-- trades are too easy, when you hold everything they want.”

Mikleo watches him, unblinking. “It’s an easy trade when every moment is precious.”

“I wouldn’t know,” Sorey shrugs. “But it makes you wonder if there’s something broken with them, mortals. They sacrifice so _much_ without knowing their own worth.”

The songbird hums a few steady notes. “Isn’t it the opposite? Mortals are easy to understand-- in the end, we just don’t want to be left behind, whether it’s out of pride or love. And we love so desperately because we know things will come to an end, eventually.”

“Mortals trade away hearts and fill their chests with the strangest things,” Sorey says, “all under the guise of love.”

“Our hearts are shaped by the things we love,” Mikleo corrects. “Is that so strange?”

“I would say so,” he responds, leaning against the window. “There are strange hearts in some mortals-- a boy with a heart made of wood and glue, a woman with a flower in her chest.” Annoying hearts, Sorey wants to say, a scowl already forming on his lips-- hearts that don’t stitch together the right way, ones that he spends hours re-crafting so nothing will be able to attack the soul housed within.

“Those hearts sound beautiful,” Mikleo says. He smiles crookedly, just one side of his lips, and Sorey frowns. “To choose to tend to your heart that way, and to die with them so close to you.  Isn’t that a beautiful thing?”

“Yes,” Sorey agrees loudly, while his mind turns over Mikleo’s words.

Mikleo laughs, “It would really would be.”

Agreement comes again, but there is something uncertain churning in Sorey’s chest.

* * *

Sometimes, after he reaps a soul, Sorey slips into the bedroom while Mikleo and the king sleep. He looks at the pair of them carefully: the king, muttering in his fitful sleep as his body is overextended past its time; the bird, growing black patches of feathers.

It is rarer, now, that Sorey sees Mikleo with fewer black feathers: he is plummeting forward in time, jumps and skips that take him closer and closer to the conclusion of their deal.

Still, Mikleo is always chained up in his birdcage when Sorey arrives, head tucked carefully against his body and little eyes shut.

The sight of him soothes something in Sorey: dulls the sharp ache in his chest.

* * *

“A feather and a song,” Sorey says, his words unmuffled by the black scarf that wound around his head and face, cloth that fell into shadows and smoke, “in exchange for more time.”

“As feather and a song,” Mikleo agrees hoarsely, watching him with red-rimmed eyes and a wavering smile from his perch above a dying king’s bed, “as promised.”

Sorey’s scythe is heavy in his hands, and he pulls his turbulent shadows around him tightly, eyes flickering over the dark feathers, so numerous that Sorey struggles to remember the bright turquoise that Mikleo once was. Still, Mikleo’s smile is still the same-- tight around the edges, a desperation borne from sorrow over his _precious_ king’s suffering.

“You’ll have to listen carefully,” Mikleo rasps, “I can’t sing so loudly, now.”

Sorey steps forward as the he begins to sing, a song that burrows itself into Sorey’s chest. He leans forward until Mikleo’s breath brushes his cheek, warm.

But Mikleo’s voice is sweet and certain, and Sorey doesn’t dare take his eyes off of the songbird. The shadows around him rumble, and he forces them down, uses the pressure in his chest to help him. The darkness is waiting for it, the conclusion of their deal, but Sorey has always known how to suppress its voraciousness. It is something Sorey has known since he has been Death, since he took on the mantle from a man with bright green eyes and a sad smile.

The role of Death comes with certainties: _One._ To take a mortal soul is to cut out their heart: their ambitions and and pride and dreams, their anxieties and their regrets and every piece of what makes them human. _Two._ Mortals are never _finished_ , will always have regrets: enough that they could fill a heart, could fill a room, could fill a kingdom. _Three._ Death is visible to only three kinds of mortals: children, animals, and the dying. _Four._ Mortals need hearts, vessels to carry them through the darkness and ward off the ghouls and creatures that would devour them. _Five._ Loss of a heart is not fatal-- mortals patch themselves hearts from the things they love, once they are strong enough to look forward. Once they are _inspired_. _Six._ Mortals love so strongly and foolishly, trade away pieces of themselves and their lives. Their loves are ones of sacrifice.

 _Seven._ This is the last deal that Mikleo will ever make.

Sorey felt it from the moment he entered, the certainty drumming in his chest that Mikleo was out of time. Even if the songbird chose this last time to be selfish, to leave the dying king to his fate, his life would end with his next breath.

Mortals are selfish, Sorey thinks, resting his head against the bars of Mikleo’s cage. Mortals are _supposed_ to be selfish, and yet this one is so frustratingly--

Mikleo’s song ends. “Sorey?”

“A song,” Sorey says, and he leans forward to brush his thumbs over Mikleo’s cheeks. He leans forward, presses his lips to Mikleo’s forehead. He kisses Mikleo gently, affectionately, and when he draws away, Mikleo’s color comes with him. “And a feather, as promised.”

The shadows around him finally settle, satiated, and Sorey draws his scythe from the space between.

Mikleo smiles at the sight of it. “This is the end, then.”

“This is the end,” Sorey agrees, and reaches out to brush Mikleo’s cheek once more. “Don’t be scared-- your heart is good, and will carry you faithfully.” It surely is a beautiful heart, born of a mortal who loved truly and deeply.

“Oh, Sorey,” Mikleo says, soft and terrible, as the last color is lapped away from his feathers, “I no longer have a heart of my own.”

There’s a sudden pressure in Sorey’s chest that he can’t explain, a burning behind his eyes. He must have misheard--

“Mikleo,” Sorey says, high and desperate, “of course you have a heart, you’re a mortal, you _must_ have a heart--” Because Sorey can hear it beating, fast and loud and Sorey has never heard such a cacophonous heart; it will be a strong vessel, albeit unsteady, but strong enough to take Mikleo to the _beyond_ , and--

“I gave it away,” Mikleo says, smiling gently at Sorey. “There was someone who needed it more than me, you see.” His fingers are wrapped around the bars of his gilded cage, squeezing so tightly that Sorey can see the blood rush to the surface of his pale flesh.

“ _Who_ ,” Sorey says, scrambling closer to the cage once more, until he pushes through the bars and is there, shadows curling around the shivering songbird. He curls his fingers around Mikleo’s shoulders, forces them to stop trembling. “The _king_? Tell me _who_ , Mikleo, I can get it back for you-- whoever it was, I can take your heart _back--_ ”

“You can’t,” Mikleo responds, and lets his fingers drift along Sorey’s cheek. “I have freely given it, and if they discarded it because of this, it will surely wither away.”

“You fell in love,” Sorey says, and there’s something sharp and tearing at the meat of his chest, something that makes his words come out of his mouth strangely. “You fell in love, and you did not receive their heart in return?” The sound of the beating is getting louder, faster, until Sorey is certain that the sound is thrashing against his ears.

Mikleo smiles, taps Sorey’s chest with a finger, “We fell in love, but he had no heart to give.”

“Mikleo,” Sorey says, “take it b--”

“Will you listen to me sing, again?” The songbird in his arms murmurs, pressing his head against the growing pain in Sorey’s chest.

“I will listen to you always,” Sorey whispers into the songbird’s feathers, watches as his shadows curl around the small form.

The song that creeps through the chambers is not sad, is not a funeral dirge.  But it is a slow song, a soft sound that curls around the room. It is _them_ , a song of their meetings dispersed across years, so many that Sorey could weave a tapestry from the strands of memories curling throughout the room.

Instead, Sorey breathes the wisps of song in from the air, lets the fine threads settle on his tongue like sugar. As if in accompaniment, the beating of the traitorous heart begins to slow, until the sound is so soft and light that Mikleo’s song dances over it.

Mikleo’s form is blurring as Sorey’s eyes burn, but he doesn’t dare look away.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the end, in the end: there is not a song but a whisper, and then silence.

 

**Author's Note:**

> [Twitter moment](https://twitter.com/i/moments/1011189293899894784)


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